Unlocking Business Opportunities: 6 'Warm' Buying Signals You Might Be Overlooking in B2B Sales

In the world of B2B sales, recognizing buying signals is crucial. These signals indicate potential sales opportunities or suggest that a prospect is showing interest in your product or service.

Strong signals are easy to spot. They include actions like a prospect responding to your email outreach or asking questions.

But there are other, less obvious signals. These are derived from various sources such as company news, hiring activities, and customer reviews.

We refer to these less obvious signals as “warm signals.” Despite their subtlety, warm signals play a vital role in refining your sales pitch, timing your outreach, and ultimately closing more deals. You just need to learn how to identify them.

Examples of Warm Buying Signals: What Do We Mean by “Warm” Signals?

The concept of leveraging warm signals in B2B sales is rooted in a strategy that originated in the 1970s by Igor Ansoff, a mathematician and business manager. He advocated using warm signals to build a “Strategic Early Warning System” to avoid unexpected surprises.

In the context of sales, warm signals refer to low-frequency, subtle indications that a business might be interested in making a purchase. These signals can include events like company fundraising, the addition of new team members, or the opening of new offices.

Monitoring these warm signals can help you gain context and relevance in your outreach efforts, providing a significant boost to your prospecting, activation, or reactivation campaigns.

How to Leverage Warm Signals in Your Sales Strategy

When it comes to using warm buying signals in sales, there are two main approaches:

1. Without Structure or Strategy

In this approach, you listen for any and every hint of a buying signal and reach out to any company that exhibits even the faintest sign of interest. However, this method is often ineffective, as a single signal alone does not necessarily qualify a lead.

2. With a Pre-Filtered B2B Prospect List

This approach involves creating a list of companies based on your ideal target audience and enriching it with data using web scraping and data enrichment tools like Genesy.

The second approach is the focus here, as it’s more effective. Before you can successfully use warm signals, you need to qualify your prospect accounts. To do this, you must understand your audience and target personas. Begin by defining your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).

Defining Your Target Profile and Its Associated Signals

To extract maximum value from warm signals, follow these steps before launching a prospecting campaign:

1. Make a list of your best customers.
2. Identify common characteristics among these customers.
3. Prioritize these characteristics.

By doing this, you’ll start your campaign with a clear idea of the type of company you should target. Next, identify which signals lead to this target and where to find them.

Example: Suppose you’re selling a cloud-based phone service and targeting companies with extensive customer service operations. The signal to look for could be either a large number of employees in customer service roles or a recently launched recruitment drive for customer service agents. You can find these signals on platforms like LinkedIn Sales Navigator to check team sizes and recruitment sites like Indeed to find job offers.

Once you know what signals to look for, create a lead-scoring system based on different buying signals and events. Keep in mind that not every signal will be relevant; it depends on the target company.

6 Less-Obvious Warm Buying Signals You Should Pay Attention To

1. Company Recruitment and Hiring Trends 🤝

Job vacancies can reveal a lot about a company’s current situation and strategy. Recruitment drives may indicate growth or struggles due to understaffing. The number of job vacancies can offer insights into projected growth, and the types of roles being hired can indicate the company’s current phase of development.

2. Position Changes and New Arrivals 📢

The arrival of a new manager often signifies a new strategy and new needs within a company. The manager is likely to be a decision-maker and potential buyer.

3. Funding, Acquisitions, Mergers, and Related Milestones 💸

Events like fundraising, IPOs, SPACs, mergers, and acquisitions indicate that a company is entering a new development phase. Such changes often mean there’s a budget available, making them ideal prospects for B2B sales.

4. Signs of International Expansion 🌎

Companies expanding into new markets require various resources, including employees, suppliers, customers, partners, and office space. Identifying such signals can uncover potential business opportunities.

5. Customer Reviews ✅

Customer reviews provide valuable insights into both a company and its product. They can also reveal potential leads, especially if customers express dissatisfaction with a competitor’s solution.

6. Using New Software or Tools 🔧

The adoption of new software or tools can indicate a shift in a company’s strategy and its openness to trying new solutions. Monitoring a company’s tech stack can offer crucial context for lead qualification.

In conclusion, warm signals in B2B sales are a hidden treasure trove of business opportunities that you should not overlook. While monitoring and interpreting these signals can be challenging, the rewards are well worth the effort. Automation platforms like Genesy can help you track business signals and enrich your CRM with relevant data, ensuring you stay ahead in the world of B2B sales.